Week 2, Term 1 Newsletter

Westmere Office — February 18th, 2026

In this week's newsletter:

School Life

This Week
- Meet the Studio
- New Hero Feature
- Garnet Road Gate Safety
- Attendance
- Stationery and School Donations

Other Opportunities

Herne Bay Racket Club
Skids
Holy Moly Arts & Crafts
Zero Waste Makerspace
St Mary’s College Open Day
Playball
Arc Dance
Western Springs AFC Junior & Youth 2026 Season Registrations
Prosford Studio
Marist College Open Day
Learn to Sew
Believe Dance & Acro
Philippa Campbell School of Ballet
Learn French

School Life

This Week

Meet the Studio
Thanks to everyone who came along to Meet the Studio this week! It was wonderful to see so many of you and welcome you back for the year. We hope you found the evening useful. Well done to those who stuck it out and made it through all three sessions, and the NUONI mātua who followed it up with Whānau Hui!

We really value your time, so if you think we missed anything or have any feedback, we'd love to hear from you (rebecca@westmere.school.nz). We're always working on ways to make things better or more useful.

New Hero Feature

You may have noticed a new calendar icon on your Hero app. This is the Events button. In this section, you'll find permission forms for upcoming trips. Click on the trip and you'll find all the details for the trip, a button to give permission and that will lead onto another screen asking for parent help, etc.

There are a number of trips coming up across the school this term, so please keep an eye out for the notifications.

Garnet Road Gate

There are many kind parents who help us out by opening the Garnet Road gate as they come in to do pick up at the end of the day. We kindly ask you to leave the gate closed until after 3pm. This helps keep some of our younger children who get excited about the prospect of heading home at the end of the day safe and sound.

Thanks for your help with this!

Attendance

Just a reminder that our new attendance requirements have come into force this year. If a child's attendance drops below 95% (that's only 5 days absence in a term), parents will be asked to come in to make an attendance plan. We are required to submit our actions at 5, 10 and 15 days absence. A statutory manager may replace the principal if attendance drops below 50%. Please be aware that our regular attendance was 51% in Term 3 last year.

I have already had a number of emails notifying me of holidays during term time. You might feel that a week's holiday has little impact, but there are hidden impacts on teachers, other children and the studio as a whole. Teachers have to work to adjust groups while your child is away and then catch your child up when they come back. Group dynamics change between friends when a child is away, and may be tricky to manage when they return. This can have an effect in the studio or out in the playground. Working to resolve these takes time. And now, making attendance plans will be another job in an already busy schedule. In light of this, we kindly ask you to limit absences as much as possible, where possible.

Stationery and School Donation

Thanks to all those who have paid for their stationery and/or made a school donation.

A reminder that stationery payments are due ASAP. We're just over halfway with payments already! These can be paid via the Finance button in Hero. If you prefer to use Internet banking all the details are there too.